Posts Tagged ‘Parkland’

I was discussing various safety measures with a friend who is a principal. The thought occurred to me: If the cops went into the school, it would be best to launch into door nooks and behind lockers as they made their way into position to take out the shooter. Well, maybe they should know the layout of the school. You know what, they should run test runs over the summer so that they are familiar with the game plan and the layout. And then I had a realization:

SCHOOL SHOOTINGS ARE RARE AS ____.

Sorry. They are. We have over 100,000 public schools in America. We have over a hundred million weapons. We have a handful of school shootings and most of those are targeted (ex-husband killing wife who is a teacher, kid shooting his bully, spurned lover, etc) not mass shootings like Parkland.

Let’s assume that we go with one security guard per school (which would be overkill in some schools and pathetic in others). If we paid that security guard $30,000 a year, that would mean a cost to the taxpayers of $3,000,000 per year.

It’s rare, but let’s assume that every year 50 school kids (way overstated) are killed in these attacks. Let’s assume that having these security guards shuts down any attempt to attack the kids (way overstated, I’m sure it’d only cut deaths 90% at best, but still). So that means for a MERE $60,000,000 a year, we can save one child.

That’s…well, that’s pathetic. Bear in mind that if you used $3,000,000 in food programs, medical treatment, water treatment, or a host of other areas, you could have a much greater impact.

Every choice is a cost benefit analysis. I hate to say it, but Trump is right. The only cost effective measure you can adopt is to allow teachers with CCWs to carry. Anything else blows the cost benefit analysis and we are better off just accepting that these rare, tragic events are going to happen from time to time.

Let’s remember how rare these attacks are before we do anything stupid.

This kid was on Youtube saying that he was going to be a professional school shooter. He was reported to the FBI. Everyone that knew this kid knew that he was dangerous. They knew that this was going to happen. But I guess the FBI was too interested tracking down Russian collusion than following up on some kid threatening to shoot cops and school kids.

This kid was screaming out for help, and no one listened. That’s why 17 people are dead at his hands. Plain and simple.

You want to stop these things? Identify people with mental issues and get them they help they need. I am also a fan of increased CCW. You say that schools should be a gun free zone. Yeah, it was…until he brought a gun there. Then it was suddenly NOT a gun free zone. At larger schools, one or two armed guards would be a good idea as well. Frankly, I am sure that there are plenty of retired military that would gladly volunteer their time tot he community in this service.

If you want to point to the “assault rifle,” as the issue, I hate to break this to you… a sawed off shotgun and a 1911 .45 would have had a similar body count in those packed conditions. So either be honest and say you want to total gun ban or understand that your solution really isn’t a solution. Let’s also be honest, there are over a million “assault rifles” in circulation. How do you plan on getting rid of those? Are you going to kick in people’s doors and take them? And what if the people take offense at that and are willing to die over it? How many law-abiding gun owners are you willing to turn into criminals and subject to fascist tactics and/or kill? Just curious. I want to have an honest conversation here.

Ask the people of France how their ultra-strict gun laws protected them from the AK-47s used by the Muslim extremists.

It’s like I always say: “Guns should be illegal. That way, no one will be able to get them…just like drugs.”